The steel industry doesn't just keep paychecks coming for 1,900 workers at ArcelorMittal. For more than 100 years, it has kept the lights on at places like Interlake Steamship Co. and W.H. Fay Co.
Interlake operates nine modernized vessels, shipping loads of iron ore from Minnesota to ArcelorMittal's mills on the Cuyahoga River.
W.H. Fay trucks out the mills' finished steel. It employs five people in its Tremont office, and coordinates 30 owner-operator drivers who work exclusively for the trucking business.
When ArcelorMittal's predecessor LTV filed bankruptcy in the past, the two firms were among 20,000 creditors who were owed more than $4 billion.
"After the LTV bankruptcies, me and my two brothers took some pretty good hits," said William "Bill" Gregg, president of W. H. Fay.
Interlake Steamship Co.'s board chairman, James Barker, called the bankruptcy "the darkest day in Interlake history."
For those firms, as for workers and managers at the steel plant, survival has not been easy.
"At the end of the day, the steel industry creates value for this nation. We move value around," said Barker. "It's so critical for nations to create value ... and steel mills do that. They take tons of raw material and make an automobile out of it, that's worth about $50,000."
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